On the Mychiller Christmas blog I’ve written about “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” the song was written right after the writer experienced a sad event, the death of his brother. So of course , that a rarity right? We do have “Do you Hear what I hear?” which was written in framing of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But that’s kind of just two songs, there’s not more are there?
Sleigh bells ring are you listening?
In the lane snow is glistening
A beautiful sight; oh, we’re happy tonight
Walking in a winter wonderland
Using the book “Stories Behind the Greatest Hits of Christmas” by Ace Collins as a source it starts the part about “Winter Wonderland” with this line (page 26) :
“Winter Wonderland” may be the only holiday song that owes its magical , upbeat lyrics to a devastating terminal disease.
So yeah, that’s a dark place to make a happy Christmas song ,but this seems to be a theme of how to make Christmas songs. The song was written by a song writer named Richard Smith and arranged by Felix Bernard. Smith was a man who was inflicted with tuberculosis he was at West Mountain Sanitarium in Scranton ,PA being treated there but there was no cure and it made him feel pain where even sitting up would be too much.
But he mustered enough one day in 1934 to get up and saw out the window at children playing in the snow. He saw them having snowball fights and making a snowman. He was interested that they talked to the snowman as if he was real.
Well, in the meadow we can build a snowman
And pretend that he is Parson Brown
He’ll say, are you married? We’ll say no man
But you can do the job when you’re in town
After a day’s watching he went back to write down his thoughts and made a poem that had his thoughts on winter. The words were a mixture of what he saw and mixture of his personal thoughts and memories. There is a little happiness to this story he did eventually feel a little well to be able to leave the sanitarium and took the poem to his friend and pianist Felix Bernard. Bernard arranged a joyful melody to fit the song and well you know that tune.
More after the jump
Sadly, the song wasn’t really picked up by anyone at first though until Joey Nash of Richard Himber and his Hotel Ritz-Carlton Orchestra hadn’t found it , he liked the song and pushed that his boss have it made even though they were done with all the Christmas songs they were doing. It worked and RCA released the song a few weeks later.
Guy Lombardo heard the recording and couldn’t get it out of his head and it brought back thoughts of his childhood and he decided do his own recording as well. The reason why he is credited mistakenly as the first recording of the song and not Himber is because radio stations saw Lombardo as the more proven ‘hit maker’ so his version was picked more than the previous. Nether the less it was successful.
Gone away is the bluebird
Here to stay is a new bird
He sings a love song
As we go along
Walking in a winter wonderland
Smith did live to hear his song air on the radio in 1934 ,but sadly he didn’t make it to winter of ’35 he died on his birthday at the age of 34 , September 29th, 1935. The adage he lives on in his song though and it’s become a popular Christmas staple every year. It was later recorded by artists like Frank Sinatra , Perry Como, The Andrews Sisters and more to even now, including Hanson.
The song was written from a moment of time where a man was suffering and found a a moment of brevity where he could see the enjoyment that winter brought and were he was living through the memories he had that brought him joy. It’s kind of like winter’s general contrast we see it as a bleak season with cold and bitterness , but there’s enjoyment to found in it and warmth (figuratively and literally) .
One thing you will notice about this song , is that it doesn’t directly say anything about Christmas , we kind of just associate it with Christmas because winter. It’s a song about winter and the enjoyment that comes with it, but it does work as a Christmas song as one of the most joyful parts of the year.
It’s lasting power has been proven someone’s version plays this time of year and it also was used as theme song of the 1976 special “Frosty’s Winter Wonderland” where Frosty gets married and there’s even a Parson Brown. So that’s a our look at a very joyful song that was written at a sad time.
mychiller Extra 
Posted on December 19, 2017
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